Nicole Heath

I’ve been looking for a real hobby for a long time. I envy my husband who loves hunting and all that is associated with the outdoors and I envy my dad who can create masterpieces out of metal. I surf around on etsy.com and see thousands upon thousands of artists creating magnificent works of art out of paint and canvas, material and thread, beads and twine and everythign in between. I’ve tried many crafts and honestly somewhat hate crafts minus the somewhat part. I’ve tried altered books which were fun but not satisfying and I’ve tried sugar cookie decorating which I actually think is a blast but requires much prep and an enormous amount of self control on my part considering sugar cookies fall right after *cheese* in terms of items I could never get sick of (sick on, yes, not sick of). I also love cooking and baking but it doesn’t feel like a hobby. Bill saves up his hard earned money for the latest scope or accessory and I throw my money away on who knows what. Actually, I do know. Clothes, music, cosmetics, etc. I’m not saying I don’t love all of that stuff but I’ve yearned for something much greater than all of those things for a long time. A LONG time. I’ve prayed, I’ve read books, I’ve explored. I’ve had a list of ideal requirements for my hobby for a while as well, which included a) not being too messy b )something I could do almost anywhere if the mood struck me c) something I already did and enjoyed d) having the possibility to to generate a tiny bit of additional income e) something that didn’t require lots of new complicated equipment (like a welder) f) something that was a creative outlet but not crafty g) something that was an actual investment and h) something I was truly passionate about.

Enter: Photography. Booo – boring you say?! Never! Here’s the thing – I’ve always appreciated the result of photography, never the photography itself. A moonlit outdoor cafe, a relaxing beach scene, a forest covered with fresh snow. All of these things make me feel warm and fuzzy inside and make me want to be a part of those images which takes a talented photographer to invoke. I love to travel and love to snap your run-of-the-mill photos but something recently clicked in me after our vacation to Alaska that said ‘this is it! this is what you need to pursue!’ I owe a good amount of credit to my dear friend Trina and her daughter Jasmyn who we traveled with to Alaska because they were able to show me a new side of photography – the side where I was there and had emotion seeing various sites and those emotions were actually captured somehow magically with the combination of an awesome camera and a very talended young lady. The whole “I want to do that!” hit me like a brick and I actually am waking up in the night thinking of things I want to photograph and capture. For the first time I realized I wanted to be the person evoking emotions in others using photography as the medium. I wanted to not only travel but somehow capture a piece of that adventure in something much greater than me standing beside a statue. I think I’ve had on the ruby slippers all along but I needed the whole journey of the yellow brick road and Glinda the good witch to show me the truth!

I’m in the process of saving my pennies to get myself a dSLR and a couple of nice lenses but in the meantime I’m flooding myself with photography books from the library. If I’m going to do this, I’m going to do this right! I’ll probably get my starter kit around Christmastime which will be perfect for our Michigan vacation.

Hey U2 – Cheers, I’ve found what I’m looking for!